‘We’ll be there when you wish to talk terms. Come, brothers. We are now officially in a dispute situation.’
They marched out.
‘Don’t bother to come back!’ Colon shouted after them.
Bonk wasn’t what Vimes had expected. In fact he’d find it hard to say what he had expected, except that this wasn’t it.
It occupied a narrow valley with a white-water river winding through it. There were city walls. They were not like those of AnkhMorpork, which had become at first a barrier to expansion and then a source of masonry for it. These had an inside and an outside. There were castles on the hills. There were castles on most hills in these parts. And there were high gates across the road.
Detritus thumped on the side of the coach. Vimes stuck his head out.
‘Dere’s guys in der road,’ said the troll. ‘Dey got halibuts.’
Vimes looked out of the windows. There were half a dozen guards, and they did indeed have halberds.
‘What are they after?’ he said.
‘I expect they’ll also want to see our papers and make a search of the coaches,’ said Inigo.
‘Papers are one thing,’ said Vimes, getting out of the coach, ‘but no one is rummaging in our stuff. I know that trick. They’re not looking for anything, they just want to show us who’s boss. You come along and do the translating.’ He added, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be diplomatic.’
The two men barring the way did have helmets and they were holding weapons, but their uniforms did not conform to normal uniformity. No guards, Vimes thought, should be dressed in red, blue and yellow. People would be able to see them coming. Vimes liked a uniform you could lurk in.
He pulled out his badge and held it up, advancing with an ingratiating smile.
‘Just repeat this, Mister Skimmer.’ Vimes raised his voice. ‘Hello, fellow officer, as you can see I am Commander V-‘
A blade swung around. If Vimes hadn’t stopped he’d have walked into it.
Inigo stepped forward, leather case already open, one hand holding several impressive pieces of paper, mouth already framing some suitable sentences. A guard took one of the pieces of paper and stared at it.
‘This is a studied insult,’ said Inigo, contriving to speak out of the corner of his mouth while maintaining a smile. ‘Someone wishes to .see how you react, mmph, mmhm.’
‘Them?’
‘No. We’re being watched.’
The paper was handed back. There was a terse conversation.
‘The captain of the guard says there are special circumstances and he will search the coaches,’ said Inigo.
‘No,’ said Vimes, taking in the expression on the captain’s white face. ‘I know when people are playing silly buggers, ‘cos I’ve done it myself.’
He pointed to the door of his coach. ‘See this?’ he said. ‘Tell him this is an AnkhMorpork crest. And this is an AnkhMorpork coach, property of AnkhMorpork. If they lay hands on it, that will constitute an act of war against AnkhMorpork. Tell him that.’
He saw the man lick his lips nervously as Inigo translated. Poor sod, he thought. He didn’t ask for this. He was probably expecting a quiet day on the gate. But someone gave him some orders.
Inigo said, ‘He says he’s very sorry, but those are his instructions, and he quite understands if his grace wishes to make a complaint at the highest level, mmph, mmhm.’
A guard turned the handle of the coach door. Vimes slammed it shut.
‘Tell him the war will start right now,’ he said. -‘And then it’ll work its way up.’
‘Your grace!’
The guards looked at Detritus. It was quite hard to hold the Piecemaker nonchalantly, and he wasn’t even making the attempt.
Vimes maintained eye-contact with the captain of the guard. If the man had any sense, he’d realize that if Detritus fired the thing it’d kill them all, besides sending the coach backwards at high speed.
Please just let him have the sense to know when to fold, he prayed.
In the corner of his ear he could hear the guards whispering to one another. He caught the word ‘Wilinus’.
The captain stepped back and saluted. ‘He apologizes for any inconvenience and hopes you will enjoy your stay in his beautiful city,’ said Inigo. ‘He particularly hopes you will visit the Chocolate Museum in Prince Vodorny Square, where his sister works.’
Vimes saluted. ‘Tell him I think he is an officer with a great future,’ he said. ‘A future which, I trust, is going to very soon include opening the damn gates.’
The captain had nodded to the men before Inigo was halfway through the translation. Aha…
‘And ask him his name,’ he said. The man was bright enough not to respond until this had been translated.
‘Captain Tantony,’ Inigo said.
‘I shall remember it,’ said Vimes. ‘Oh, and tell him he has a fly on his nose.’
Tantony won a prize. His eyes barely flickered. Vimes grinned.
As for the town itself … it was just a town. Roofs were steeper than in AnkhMorpork, some maniac with a fretsaw had been allowed to amuse himself on the wooden architecture, and there was more paint than you saw back home.
Not that this told you anything; many a rich man had become rich by, metaphorically, not painting his house.
The coaches bowled over the cobbles. Not the right sort of cobbles, of course. Vimes knew that.
The coach stopped again. Vimes stuck his head out -of the window. Two rather scruffier guards had barred the road this time.
‘Ah, I recognize this one,’ said Vimes grimly. ‘I reckon that this time we’ve just met Colonesque and Nobbski.’
He stepped out and walked up to them. ‘Well?’
The fatter of the two hesitated, and then held out his hand. ‘Pisspot,’ he said.
‘Inigo?’ said Vimes quietly, without turning his head.
‘Ah,’ said Inigo, after some muttered exchanges. ‘Now the problem seems to be Sergeant Detritus. No trolls are allowed in this part of town during the hours of daylight, apparently, without a passport signed by their … owner. Uh … in Bonk the only trolls allowed are prisoners of war. They have to carry identification.’
‘Detritus is a citizen of AnkhMorpork and my sergeant,’ said Vimes.
‘However, he is a troll. Perhaps in the interests of diplomacy you could write a short-‘
‘Do 1 need a pisspot?’
‘A passport … No, your grace.’
‘Then he doesn’t either.’
‘Nevertheless, your grace-‘
‘There is no nevertheless.’
‘But it may be advisable to-‘
‘There’s no advisable either.’
A few other guards had drifted over. Vimes was aware of watching eyes.
‘He could be ejected by force,’ said Inigo.
‘Now there’s an experiment I wouldn’t want to miss,’ said Vimes.
Detritus made a rumbling noise. ‘I don’t mind goin’ back if-‘
‘Shut up, sergeant. You’re a free troll. That’s an order.’
Vimes permitted himself another brief scan of the growing, silent crowd. And he saw the fear in the eyes of the men with the halberds. They did not want to be doing this, any more than the captain had.
‘I’ll tell you what, Inigo,’ he said. ‘Tell the guards that the Ambassador from AnkhMorpork commends them for their diligence, congratulates them on their dress sense and will see that their instruction is obeyed forthwith. That should do it, shouldn’t it?’
‘Certainly, your grace.’
‘And now turn the coach around, Detritus. Coming, Inigo?’
Inigo’s expression changed rapidly.
‘We passed an inn about ten miles back,’ Vimes went on. ‘Ought to make it by dark, do you think?’
‘But you can’t go, your grace!’
Vimes turned, very slowly. ‘Would you repeat that, Mister Skimmer?’
‘I mean-‘
‘We are leaving, Mister Skimmer. What you do, of course, is up to you.’
He sat down inside the coach. Opposite him Sybil made a fist and said, ‘Well done!’
‘Sorry, dear,’ said Vimes, as the coach turned. ‘It didn’t look a very good inn.’
‘Serves them right, the little bullies,’ said Sybil. ‘You showed them.’
Vimes glanced out and saw, at the edge of the crowd, a black coach with dark windows. He could make out a figure in the gloom within. The luckless guards were looking at it, as if for instructions. It Waved a gloved hand languidly.
He started counting under his breath. After eleven seconds Inigo trotted alongside the coach and jumped on to the running board.
‘Your grace, apparently the guards acted quite without authority and will be punished-‘
‘No, they didn’t. I was looking at ‘em. They’d been given an order,’ said Vimes.
‘Nevertheless, diplomatically it would be a good idea to accept the explan-‘
‘So that the poor buggers can be hung up by their thumbs?’ said Vimes. ‘No. Just you go back and tell whoever’s giving the orders that all our people can go anywhere they like in this city, d’you see, whatever shape they are.’
‘I don’t think you can actually demand that, sir-‘
‘Those lads had old Burleigh Fr Stronginthearm weapons, Mister Skimmer. Made in AnkhMorpork. So did the men on the gate. Trade, Mister Skimmer. Isn’t that part of what diplomacy is all about? You go back and talk to whoever’s in the black carriage, and then you’d better get them to lend you a horse, because I reckon we’ll have gone a little way by then.’